


that new car smell

by wearethewitches



Series: the false passports scheme [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Emma Swan, Brat Henry Mills (Once Upon a Time), Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Service Dogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-07 16:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Emma 'Winona Kirk' Swan finds herself back in her own reality, age eighteen and alone. Ten years later, a familiar beagle at her side, Henry Mills turns up at her workplace and says: "I'm your son." Everything tumbles from there and unfortunately for Emma, Henry's adoptive mother?She's absolutely gorgeous.(In that, she-looks-like-she's-going-to-murder-you-in-a-Prada-suit-while-smiling, hella gorgeous way.)





	1. Chapter 1

“Thirty dollars and fifty-two cents.”

Sighing with a grimace, Emma pays the thirty in cash, scrambling to find the remaining fifty-two cents required in her wallet and pockets. Behind her, the rest of the customers wanting to pay for gas shuffle and wait, the pressure to finish her business rising by the second. Finding the change, Emma slaps it down on the counter, getting her receipt and dashing off, jostling a tall, auburn-haired man browsing the candy aisle.

“Sorry,” Emma gets out, the man waving it off with an overly-happy smile that makes Emma uncomfortable. Leaving shortly – _before_ he can start up a conversation, _stars, Canadians are weird_ , she thinks – the blonde makes her way back to her as equally yellow Bug, the paint faded almost to the point of white. Her car is sorely in need of a paint job. Yet another thing to add to the list of things needed to be done.

Driving out of the gas station, Emma heads out of Toronto, turning up the heating as the gentle snowfall turns into a blizzard. She squints in an attempt to see better, very aware that _this_ is why she needs glasses. Short-range, she’s fine, but long distances…

Unwillingly, her thoughts turn to her old fantasy, the life she lived in a dream. Surgery had fixed her eyes in less than an hour, all lasers and paperwork. _Hadn’t even been that many credits_ , Emma remembers idly, before roughly flinching. _I was in a coma. It was all a dream. I never lived in another universe and I never got my eyes fixed._ She shakes her head sharply, before concentrating on the road, turning a corner only to start sliding, quickly slipping off the road sideways.

“Oh my god!” she hisses, before bracing herself as the Bug falls into a snow-drift. Unfortunately, her head still bangs against her car window and Emma feels numb, disconnected. Her body curls into the door, the blanket on the passenger seat dropping against her, along with her leather jacket – it’s been too cold for her to wear it, so instead, Emma’s been dressing in a thick, black winter coat, one she’s got on now and is distantly thankful for. The Bug is still running, too, the heating warming her toes even as a warm trickle runs down her ear.

 _Not going to be cold, at least,_ she thinks, few thoughts coherent. _Warm._ Logically, she knows she’s in shock, but her head hurts, throbbing in pain. _This is like my car crash getting out of Phoenix. Except opposite. Snowy instead of desert. Sand. No people to help me. No-one’s fault either. I’m alone._

Emma has always been alone. Even in her dreams, she- she made herself a family, made up names and- and borrowed faces and pretended she was Winona Ryder. _Kirk. Fucking Winona Kirk, I was a badass in my dream and I wasn’t even real._

 _I don’t want to be alone,_ she thinks, closing her eyes as the throbbing in her head increases. _I wish I weren’t alone_ …and then, Emma feels a _pull_ , right before she agrees to sleep.

* * *

Sensations. Noise. Her hands are cold… _barking?_

A familiar creaking sound. A voice asking her if she’s okay. _What’s okay?_ More creaking and a new voice, before the floor vibrates, like someone’s kicked it.

“Hey, missy, can you hear me?” they’re a woman and Emma tries to open her eyes, but then a pain in her head makes itself known and she lets out a horrible whine, despairing at her own condition. “Alright, she’s not good, Al. I’m going to bring her up.” Limbs – hands – pad around her before digging around, lifting her up. Emma feels like a deadweight, until they actually manage to lift her, wind blowing her hair and an almighty chill creeping up on her.

“I see blood.” The other voice – another woman.

“Banged her head, I think.”

More barking. “Hey, shush now, we’ve got your lady, if she is your lady, boy. You’re such a good doggo, yes you are, yes you _are._ ”

“Alison. Help me get the barely-conscious woman out of the car.”

“Just a second, sorry.”

Emma feels herself being lifted up into the cold, rested on a metal side before smaller hands wrap around her, lifting her into a cradle.

“Got her. I’ll get her home – you get her car? It’s still running.”

“It’s not fit for snow.”

“Ray, the house is literally fifty feet down a straight road. I’ll tow it up and you drive it.”

“Fine. Now get the girl into our truck, before she freezes to death.”

“She’s a lucky one. Heater on, big jacket and hell, even a _blanket-_ ”

“Truck, _now_.”

“Alright, alright, we’re going.” Emma feels them move, swaying. Her head pounds with every movement and the dog’s barking echoes in her skull, kicking around and amplifying.

* * *

She comes to coherence on a floor. Or, rather, on a rug. Her head is bandaged and it hurts, still, but a little less. Heat wafts from her left and there are heavy blankets leaning on her, covering her right side. A bundle of heat is in front of her face and a second later she realises it has a heartbeat and it smells like wet dog.

 _Why is a dog…_ Emma can feel its short fur on her nose, though and it’s damningly familiar. Opening her eyes, Emma sees more fur. Forcing herself to move, hissing as she sits up, head rushing with blood and _pain, fuck this hurts_. The dog sits up, yipping quietly.

“John.”

The beagle yips again, before pushing his head against her side, Emma staring at him in both wonder and dismay, her free hand coming to stroke his head. _No, no, it was a **dream**_.

“Is that his name?” comes a new voice. Emma looks around, finding a dark-skinned woman in a knitted jumper curled up in front of an armchair, right beside where her head had been laying. Firelight illuminates her face, the right side of her forehead immediately drawing her attention because of the large dent in it. Emma can’t help but stare. “Moose antler to the face, five years ago. My wife and I rescued you from your car. You slid off the road and banged your head. If not for your dog, we- well, we probably would have seen you eventually, through our window. Your car was fine, still running. Probably kept you from freezing.”

“It’s a good car,” Emma finally speaks. She shuffles, pushing the heavy blankets off her, pulling John the Beagle – _James John Archer, John the Beagle, oh stars, oh holy fuck_ – into her lap, pulling him into her chest. “Who are you?”

“Rachelle. Rachelle Lemoreau. My wife is Alison.” Rachelle moves, rearranging her legs. “She’s a nurse. It’s how we met. You have a medium concussion, or something like that. Not mild, but not severe, either. If you don’t mind, we’d rather you stay here tonight, so we can keep an eye on you. If things go south, Al can help. Your car’s not really suitable for the weather, either, no matter how good it is.”

“Right…thank-you, I mean.”

“It’s no problem. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Do you have hot chocolate?” Emma tries, getting a smile from Rachelle before she gets up.

“Sure do. Just wait right there.”

* * *

It makes sense to take John the Beagle with her when she leaves Canada. Of course it does. It’s not as if he’s a dog from another universe, _no_.

“I have to get you a bed,” Emma says as he curls up on her jacket. “Or like, a dog seatbelt. I know they have those. Both is good, maybe. What do you think, Johnny?”

John the Beagle yips once.

Emma nods, hands curling around the steering wheel. “Right. Both is good, definitely. Pet insurance, too and- and you’d already have a tracker, wouldn’t you? All I gotta do is find it and calibrate some kind of- kind of…”

She just can’t believe he’s here. Her _dad’s dog. Fuck, it was real, it was all real._ Her hands clench and she concentrates on driving down the road without losing focus. All of a sudden, her stomach aches and she smashes her hazards, pulling over abruptly, stopping on the maintenance track. Emma hunches over herself, John whining and climbing over the gearbox to sniff at her.

The pain is something she’s felt before, definitely and it doesn’t take her long to remember from where because she’s been through it three times. Not once, just when she was eighteen but thrice – at eighteen, twenty-two and twenty-five. _Every fucking three years, just why the fuck is it always **three**?_ Emma groans, tugging her shirt up and her trousers down, watching with disbelief as a red scar traces its way over her skin. Each millimetre is a jolt of pain to her system and through it, familiar stretch marks appear, turning purple then silver, overlapping and overlaying the ones that had been there since two thousand and one.

 _Fucking C-section, George Samuel Kirk Junior, you were one hell of a kid._ Emma forces herself to remember the day he was born. _He was late, like two weeks late._ She’d gone into labour but Sam was just too fucking big. Even a couple hundred years in the future, C-sections were the way to go with humans and the anaesthesia had kept her under as long as she was opened up – George asked them to wake her so she could meet Sam as soon as he was cleaned up.

 _George,_ Emma squeezes her eyes shut, the pain in her abdomen fading as the scar finishes painting its way across her skin, turning silver. _George was real. He was real in an alternate universe. He’s dead in an alternate universe. Fuck you, Frank, just fuck you. He might not be alive here or even existing yet, but George was real. Sam and Jim are real. James was real, too and Amanda and Jodi. I hope Spock is doing fine. Ten years. Seven years since…since the **ten years** I spent in the future, in another universe._

Holding John the Beagle tightly, Emma hugs him for a few moments longer before doing up her trousers and tugging down her shirt, wondering why her scars are appearing now. An itching on the back of her hand alerts her to the faint burn scar left from an electric fire reappearing and she takes a couple of minutes to wait, in case any more appear; and they do.

Eventually, it stops and she deposits John on the passenger seat.

“Back on the seat, boy. I know my Bug isn’t as nice as a spaceship or a hovercar, so sorry, but I can’t do anything about that…well, I could,” Emma pauses, eyebrow rising as something occurs to her. “The Prime Directive. Technically, this planet could be classed as a pre-warp civilisation. Civilisations. I’m not really allowed to make a hovercar or use my damn engineering degrees.”

Frowning deeply, Emma doesn’t realise that someone’s pulled up behind her until they’re knocking on her window. Jerking, she rolls it down upon seeing a cop, grimacing.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” they glance at her dog. “You having trouble, ma’am?”

“It’s nothing, I’ll be off soon. I…I mean, I was having some trouble, but it’s all dealt with now.”

“Alright, then.”

The officer leaves after asking to see her drivers license and another form of ID, Emma making sure John the Beagle is set on the passengers seat properly.

“Let's go.”

John the Beagle yips, Starfleet insignia on his collar reflecting the light and Emma wonders just how he came to her universe.


	2. Chapter 2

Having her dad’s dog at her side is far more of a confidence booster than before. For the last five years, Emma has thought she dreamed up her life in the Federation, with Amanda, Jodi, James and George. To have John the Beagle with her is a kind of proof she needed. _Maybe Amanda can’t get me back. Maybe she sent John to be with me._ Thoughts like that give her comfort, when knowing her kids are still there in that other universe doesn’t.

She tries not to think of Frank, but memories of him are intertwined with recollections of Sam and Jim. Emma can’t imagine what they think of her. Hopefully Frank is behind bars. Hopefully her kids are growing up with Amanda, on the outskirts of ShiKahr. Spock’s sehlat probably acts as a protector for when they explore the Vulcan desert and the Forge – Emma knows that Jim would be rushing around all the time, trying to find every last hidey-hole on Vulcan. Amanda and Sarek would be exhausted trying to control him. Sam and Spock are only two and a half years apart, born in _2227_ and _2230_ respectively, so they might be friends. Jim was born on _2233,_ five years younger than Spock, but he was always too clever for his own good. _He’d do well in a Vulcan school_.

Emma herself knows she can do better, here. In the Federation universe, she had diplomas in Terran Engineering Mechanics and Galactic Standard Space Mechanics – neither were to be laughed at. Emma went through Starfleet Academy, too – she graduated from the Engineering Track before she got pregnant with Jim. _I can do better here_. With John the Beagle as her emotional support, Emma gets her certificates. Even if it means staying in Boston for three years, she’s willing to work for it all, to getting it done and making something of herself.

 _You have no children, no family, nothing but a dog_ _who you’ve had_ _registered as_ _a mental health dog for your mental illness_ _because_ _your_ _have Issues_ _,_ she thinks to herself as she waitresses, does odd shifts at a garage, tests out of classes and studies just as hard as the last time. _But you can do better. Make it better._ ** _Work_** _for it._

* * *

“Hey, Swan,” Keith calls, catching her attention. Emma finishes reconnecting a part of the Ford’s engine that she’s working on before standing up, looking over to her boss as she wipes her hands on her overalls.

“What’s up?”

“The sky. What’s at the door is a kid,” Keith tilts his head to the office and Emma looks over to see Jackie entertaining a young boy with yo-yo tricks. He’s brunette and has a backpack slung over his shoulder, wearing a pretty nice jacket. _No rips or tears. He’s got money. Probably just waiting for his parents to pick up their car…_ but there aren’t any cars to pick up, that Emma’s aware of at least. “Know him?”

“Nope.” Emma says carefully, frowning. “Who is he?”

“Why don’t you go an’ ask him?” Keith says, Emma narrowing her eyes at his tone. Wiping her hands on her overalls again, she walks over to the office, retying her hair from the bun it had come away from. John the Beagle’s claws scrape on the concrete as he scampers over to her, Emma’s boots splashing in a puddle on the floor. The noises attract the boy’s attention, his head shifting sideways. He focuses in on her as she approaches, briefly glancing at John.

“Hey,” she greets as she comes to the office doorway, the kid spinning on his chair around to face her. Emma looks to Jackie. “Who’s the kid?”

“No clue. He was asking for you, though.” Jackie kicks off the filing cabinet to spin back to the desk, yo-yo getting tucked away in her pocket.

“Are you Emma Swan?” the kid asks. Emma looks to him, slightly uncomfortable at being addressed by a strange child.

“Yeah, who are you?”

“I’m Henry,” Henry smiles, “I’m your son.”

Emma stares for a moment, but before she has a chance to deny it, John the Beagle takes that moment to pad over to him, sniffing at Henry’s trouser-cuffs. Emma looks to her dog, thinking _shit_. John the Beagle whines, nosing his leg and she thinks, _double shit, he recognises the kid._ Because John the Beagle is a beagle from the twenty-third century, a Starfleet canine with all the required space-faring training and also a member of her family, who had spent time with Sam and Jim when they were very young.

“Damn,” Emma mutters, holding the doorframe. _This is my kid. The one who I gave away at eighteen…fuck._ However, that’s when Emma kicks into gear. “It was a closed adoption. You shouldn’t have been able to find me.”

“Well, I did.”

Emma looks at the clock on the wall, frowning. “It’s like, ten at night, kid. Where are your parents?”

“You’re right here,” he tries, but Emma lets out a short laugh, coming forwards to pick up John the Beagle, stepping back once she has him.

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening. Jackie, call the police, please.”

“If I call them, they’ll keep me behind,” Jackie replies, not looking up from her paperwork. “You call them.”

“I’ll say you kidnapped me,” Henry says as Emma goes for the phone.

“Won’t work, kid,” she says, dialling _911._ “I’ve got an alibi and there are security cameras here.”

“But it was a closed adoption,” he starts, sounding particularly devious, grinning. Emma pauses, his voice setting off her alarms. _What’s he going to say?_ “I’m just a kid. I can’t have found you all by myself, so you must have been stalking me.”

Jackie snorts, “He’s got you there.”

Emma purses her lips, thumb hesitating over the call button. “But they’ll believe _me_ , because I’m the adult.”

“As I said: closed adoption.” He grins and Emma narrows her eyes.

“What do you want?”

* * *

Storybrooke is…big, but at the same time, small. It’s a secluded town, out in the middle of nowhere, Maine and Henry is adamant that she’s some kind of fairytale character – the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, to be more specific. Emma would have laughed, had Amanda’s words not come back to her.

_“So, my team decided, based on what data we had, that there must have been a factor in your universe present that isn’t in ours – like a radiation, or the way that humans in your universe have evolved.”_

It makes Emma uneasy to think of that factor as…magic.

“I believe in science,” she tells Henry. “I know how the world works.”

“Yeah, _this_ world,” he replies and Emma can’t help but internally disagree, despite herself. _Because I know the physics of another universe, not this one. Dammit._

John the Beagle doesn’t need a lead and never has. When a man that turns out to be Henry’s therapist walks along the road, Dalmatian with him, John the Beagle sniffs at him carefully before padding back over to Emma, sitting by her feet. His behaviour is kind of strange, but Emma has never really let him spend time with other dogs before and she doubts that James ever did, either. _Too busy investigating aliens and paperwork, I bet._

Dr Hopper provides an address and Emma remembers seeing the signpost for Mifflin Street a couple of turns back, thanking him and buckling John back into the front seat. Henry had complained at being stuck in the back, but Emma had tactfully reminded him that a) it was her car, b) he blackmailed her into giving him a ride and c) it was her car.

“Please don’t take me home,” Henry tries to plead as they drive up Mifflin Street towards the mayors house and _stars, he was adopted by a_ ** _mayor_** _._ Emma doesn’t answer him as she pulls up in front of the white-faced mansion, suitably intimidated by his parents. “ _Please_.”

“Alright, out we get,” Emma unbuckles herself and John the Beagle, taking a moment to straighten his bright yellow jacket, letting him lick her face before opening your door. Getting out – John the Beagle following close behind – Emma opens the other door for Henry, moving the seat forwards so he can get out. John the Beagle lets out a short yip, attracting her attention as Henry gets out of the car. She turns to look at the house, the front door open to shine a light on the front garden, a man and a woman both hurrying down the pathway.

“Henry!” the woman exclaims, hugging him tightly. “Henry, where were you? I was so worried-”

Uncharacteristically, in Emma’s opinion, Henry rips away from her embrace, glaring and shouting. “I found my real mom!” Immediately Emma feels bad, cringing as Henry rushes past her, running up the pathway and into the house. The man clears his throat.

“I’ll go check on the boy.”

“Thank-you, Sheriff,” the woman, Henry’s mother says, voice tired and cracking. The man – the Sheriff – spares Emma one last look before returning to the house, Emma swallowing as the woman turns to her, giving Emma her first eyeful of a _gorgeous as fuck woman. Holy shit, she’s beautiful._

Because Henry’s mother is a bombshell that Amanda could never compete with. The woman is dark-haired and dark-eyed, with gorgeous bronze skin and a deep scar running down her bright red lips. Emma can feel her mouth hanging open slightly and shuts it tightly, John the Beagle tucking between her legs, reminding her that she’s still wearing her messy overalls from work.

“You’re Henry’s mother?”

“Hi,” Emma says, giving an awkward smile. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this.”

“I…” the woman looks her up and down, frowning slightly at the sight of John the Beagle. “Did Henry disrupt your life at all?”

“Well, he sort of showed up at my work while I was working and blackmailed me into driving him home,” Emma crosses her arms, glancing back at the woman’s house. _I should probably get her name._ “Uh, I’m Emma. Emma Swan.”

“Mayor Mills,” and then she smiles and there’s something… _off_. Emma feels her stomach drop. “How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted?”

“Sure,” Emma accepts, glancing down at John the Beagle. “Can he come inside?”

“…if he’s house-trained,” Mayor Mills eyes him distastefully, but she’s frowning again, differently from before. “Do you require him?”

“Sort of, yeah,” Emma says apologetically, mind flickering back to the long sessions with her psychologist that she’d gone through in an attempt to get help processing how she’d lost basically ten years of her life and three kids. _Well, the psychologist thought it was just one kid and that I had maladaptive daydreaming, but still._ “I mean, he can wait outside, I’d just rather…rather he’d just be nearby. He helps.”

Mayor Mills softens a small amount, enough for Emma to see, her shoulders lowering and a smaller, more honest smile appearing on her face.

“Come inside. Both of you.”

The three of them make their way up the path, entering the mayors house. Emma looks up and around, reflexively straying from touching anything, knowing she’s still got grease on her hands and her dirty overalls on. The mayor invites her into a small wood-panelled room with sofas and a bar, giving her a glass of the offered cider.

“It’s good,” Emma says after trying it. Mayor Mills, like Emma, stays standing.

“Thank-you. I made it myself.”

“Cool,” she replies, impressed. Taking another sip, Emma stifles a yawn, tired from the long drive and her long day. “I should probably be heading back to Boston.”

“Yes, you probably should,” Mayor Mills watches her, unblinking, all signs of upset vanished. Emma frowns at the abrupt dismissal, raising an eyebrow as the woman takes her cider away. “It’s a long journey. You will make good time if you go now.”

“…thanks,” Emma says starkly, a little weirded out, but agreeing with her, nonetheless. “I’ll just go.”

Mayor Mills gives a large, white smile. “Good. Have a nice life, Miss Swan.”

“You too. Give Henry my best and…”

“And what? You have no legal right to him.” The change is jarring, that defensiveness of her position as his mother, but Mayor Mills’ smile is still in place.

“I know,” Emma blinks, putting her hands up. “I’m very aware of that. Closed adoption and all that. I just wanted you to ask him not to contact me again. I might have regretted giving him up, but I could have never given him this.”

“And what is ‘this’?” Mayor Mills asks in a low, warning voice.

Emma motions around. “ _This._ A nice house, nice clothes, enough money to get to Boston and obviously an education that actually does something, because it’s been twenty-eight years and I’ve not been able to find _my_ parents.”

“Your parents?” Mayor Mills startles, seemingly caught off-guard. Emma’s brows knit together.

“Yeah, my parents. I wanted him to have better than I did. Foster-care isn’t nice, lady and I’m glad you adopted him. I really am…I think I’ll be going, now.”

“Right, yes, going. You should go,” Mayor Mills watches her with a frown and Emma wonders briefly if she had been in foster-care too. _But that's not any of my business._ “I’ll walk you out.”

“Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

A wolf on the road sends her flying off the road. She wakes up in a jail-cell, with John the Beagle licking her face. The Sheriff – who says he’s called Graham – tells her that Regina’s cider is stronger than it looks. Emma, respectfully, disagrees and tells the truth of her circumstances, but not fast enough to be let out of her cell before Regina Mills herself appears in a flurry, worried for a yet-again missing Henry.

“Graham? Henry's run away again, we have to-” upon seeing Emma, the Mayor stops, face contorting. “What is she doing here? Do you know where he is?”

“Mayor Mills, I haven't seen him since I dropped him at your house and I think I have a pretty good alibi.” Emma shrugs, motioning to the cell bars.

“Yeah, well, he wasn't in his room this morning.”

“Did you try his friends?”

“He doesn't really have any. Kind of a loner.”

“Every kid has friends,” Emma replies before questioning her. “Did you check his computer?”

“Why would I do that?”

John the Beagle presses up against her ankle as she replies, “Well, he obviously found me. My records were sealed by a judge in another state – he couldn’t have gotten my name just by phoning up the adoption agency. I mean, if he’s done anything like…” Emma swallows nervously.

“Like what, Miss Swan?” Mayor Mills questions impatiently.

“He might be trying to find his real dad.”

“And _could_ he?” the mayor looks on in horror.

“No, he couldn’t. I mean, I never said who it was, so he’d have to get a DNA test. Henry, I mean.” Emma watches as Mayor Mills collapses onto the nearest chair, putting her head in her hands. “If it means anything, I really doubt his dad would try taking custody. He never did take much responsibility for anything and the kid’s got issues a mile long.”

“ _Don’t_ talk about my son!” Mayor Mills snaps, glaring at her. Emma snorts.

“He thinks we’re all fairy-tale characters and that I’m the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming that’s going to break the Evil Queen’s Curse. If that doesn’t class as _issues_ , I don’t know what does.”

“Fairy-tale characters?” Mayor Mills questions, perturbed, expression suddenly transforming into one of horror. “Why would he think that?”

“He has a book,” Emma rolls her eyes before looking to Graham. “Am I allowed out of here yet? I’ve got to call my employers. No way am I getting back in time for my shift.”

“Sure,” the Sheriff comes forwards with the keys, opening up the door. “You can use the station phone if you like.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. What happened to my car?”

“I got it towed,” he says, Emma wincing.

“Where to? I can fix it up myself.” _Fuck, I hope they don’t look at the engine before I get there._ Emma _really_ doesn’t think it’s a good idea for any of them to look at the Bug. Like, at all.

“I’ll give you directions. Looks like I’m on the hunt for Henry again.” Graham sighs a little.

“Good luck with that,” Emma offers honestly, glancing at the mayor again. “Hey, Mayor Mills?”

“What?” she snaps.

Emma hesitates, but ploughs onwards. “Thank-you for adopting Henry.”

“I don’t need your thanks,” the mayor stands up, gathering herself before looking down on Emma imperiously – which should have been a little more difficult, seeing as she’s half a foot shorter than Emma. “Don’t mistake all of this as invitation back into his life. You made a decision ten years ago to give him away and in the last decade, while you've been – well, who knows that you've been doing – I’ve changed every diaper, soothed every fever, endured every tantrum. You may have given birth to him, but he is _my_ son.”

Flinching, Emma nods curtly. “Got it.”

 _It's not like I was_ ** _thanking_** _you or anything,_ she thinks. _And no offence to Henry, but I've got two other sons who were torn away from me, who I'll never get to see again. I'd rather have an invitation back into_ ** _their_** _lives, if that's alright. Henry might be unhappy now, but if this magic thing isn't true, then...then, well, he'll get better._

Mayor Mills sneers, “Good. Sheriff Humbert, if we could go out and try to find _my_ son, now.” She turns on her heel, leaving. Graham grimaces, giving Emma the directions to the tow-shop and pointing out the station phone, before leaving too.

* * *

Working out a deal with the mechanic, a man by the name of Michael Tillman, Emma gets permission to fix up her own car using his garage as a base, paying a fee to use the facilities. Inspecting the Bug, Emma decides to give it a general maintenance at the same time, usually too busy working to get it done.

Keith gives her the next few days off upon hearing about her crash, but unfortunately her bosses at her dual waitressing jobs aren’t so impressed. One even fires her, Emma getting a notification of a payment into her account from them, her wages from the last month, a figure that can pay the rent for her apartment for another two weeks. The other boss gives her a warning and gives Emma until Sunday to appear, or her job there is on the line as well. _Always looking for new employees_ , they say and Emma gets the urge to just say _fuck_ _that_ and quit, but stops herself because it would prove their point.

“My job sucks,” she mutters to John the Beagle, who sits in his basket by the entrance in the sun behind her. “I wish I was still with Starfleet.”

“What’s Starfleet?” comes a young voice. Emma jerks up from where she’s leaning over the Bug’s engine, twisting to see Henry standing in the middle of the doorway.

“Kid, what the hell?”

“What’s Starfleet?” he repeats his question, going over to John the Beagle and leaning over to pat him. Emma wipes her hands on her overalls, shaking her head, tamping down the urge to tell him off. _John is on duty._

“No, no, no, stop right there. Your mom is missing you and don’t you have school?”

“What’s his name?” Henry tries to change the subject, still petting John, but Emma shakes her head, going over to the garage landline. “What are you doing?”

“Calling the sheriff station,” she says, squinting at the list of emergency numbers on the wall, hand-written. Finding the sheriff station, she calls it, keeping an eye on Henry as he pets her dog. “Why are you even here?”

“I saw my moms car at my castle, so I hid and ran away when she wasn’t looking,” he says and Emma’s internal lie-detector doesn’t go off, though she does get a little confused at the castle bit as her call connects.

“ _Sheriff Humbert._ ”

“Graham, it’s Emma, Emma Swan,” she greets. “Henry decided to pay me a visit at Michael Tillman’s garage. Apparently, he was at his ‘castle’ and ran off when he saw his mom.”

“ _Great, Emma. Try to keep him there. I’ll phone Regina and hopefully one of us will show up before he tries to scarper._ ” He hangs up quickly and Emma puts the phone down. Henry stands up straight again, looking at her in disappointment before turning to leave. Panicking, Emma thinks of a way to keep him with her.

“Uh-" something genius occurs to her "-hey, kid! He’s called John! James John Archer Junior!”

Henry pauses, glancing back at her with a befuddled expression that reminds Emma of the mayor. “Really?”

“Yeah, he- uh, I call him John the Beagle though,” Emma wipes her hands on her overalls nervously, not knowing what to do with her hands. “He was my dad's dog.”

“You were adopted?”

“Sort of,” Emma shrugs, before motioning John the Beagle over with a quick motion. He comes over to her and Henry trails behind him. “I was a little old by the time he could. Archer let me keep John the Beagle after…” she trails off because she can’t exactly say _my husband died_ , not in this universe. “He can do some cool tricks. Do you want to see?”

“Show me,” Henry orders and Emma verbally orders John the Beagle to sit, roll over, play dead and stand at ease consecutively, before having him do them all again from non-verbal commands. “He’s so cool.”

“Yeah,” Emma nods, crouching down to give John a stroke. When Henry joins her, Emma stops resisting the urge to speak. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

Emma takes his wrist, pulling his hand off John’s neck. “That. Stroking. He’s a medical dog and my companion. He’s here to make me feel better, not for strangers to stroke. He’s not a pet, he’s doing a job.”

Henry frowns. “Why is he a medical dog? Are you disabled?”

“No, not technically. I just have…problems. Mental health problems. He helps keep me grounded,” Emma explains, scratching behind his ear. She thinks of George, Sam, Jim, Amanda, Jodi, James and Frank, of her life in the Federation. _I still can’t believe I thought it was a dream._ “If you want to pat him, ask first, please.”

“Okay. Can I pat him?”

“No,” Emma shakes her head, before standing, ordering the dog back to his bed just before a car pulls up outside the garage. Thankfully, it’s the police cruiser and Graham and not the mayor. “There’s your ride.”

Henry’s shoulders drop as Graham approaches, shaking his head. “Henry, you need to stop doing this. Your mother is very worried about you.”

“She’s not really. She doesn’t love me.”

“That’s a horrid thing to say about your mother,” Graham says before putting his hand on Henry’s shoulder, looking to Emma. “Thank-you for calling.”

“No problem,” Emma replies, watching the sheriff take Henry away. The cruiser leaves and Emma turns back to the Bug’s engines, going back to where she’d left off. _He’s cruel,_ the thought drifts through her head as she works. _He’s cruel for saying that shit about his mom. She loves him. If she doesn’t, then at least she cares enough about him to worry. Others get less than that._

Emma thinks on the mayor. _Regina Mills._ The woman who adopted her firstborn is wealthy, clearly and has a good job. Graham seemed to be her boyfriend or…something, a male influence for Henry at least if they weren’t together. _Different last names and neither had rings. Maybe he’s her booty call._ The idea brings a slight smirk to her face as she thinks about it. Graham is aesthetically pleasing – pretty damn handsome, in her opinion. Emma already thinks the mayor is gorgeous. _What would it be like to hit that? Or both of them?_

Getting focused on her work, Emma falls into the zone, mind running a mile a minute. She doesn’t realise that someone else has shown up until they clear their throat, calling her name. Blinking, Emma looks back, only to see the mayor herself.

“Oh, hi.” Standing up straight – cricking her back as she does – Emma licks her lips. “Graham already picked up Henry.”

“I know. We’ve had words and Henry is now grounded. He’s attending school and has a teaching assistant keeping an eye on him, so he doesn’t run off again.”

“Oh,” Emma says, at a loss as to why the mayor would be here.

“I’d like to thank you for calling the sheriff,” Mayor Mills continues stiffly. “Henry has been difficult as of late, since I told him he was adopted. I’ve had him in therapy, but…”

“Therapy is good,” Emma murmurs. “Though he might not appreciate it as much as he should.”

At her words, Mayor Mills glances at John the Beagle. “Did you get something from it?”

“Yeah, I mean…yes. I was with a psychologist rather than a therapist, but yeah.”

“Is there a difference?”

Emma shrugs. “Well, yeah. Not much, but yeah. Having a psychologist rather than a therapist got John his license to accompany me.”

“He was your dog before?”

“My dads. John was a military dog, before he came to me.”

“You were adopted?”

Emma pastes on a fake smile. “Yeah and that’s all your getting. My life is private.”

The mayor clenches her jaw but nods. “Apologies. When will you be heading out of town?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Emma replies, glancing back at the Bug. “My car was pretty banged up and I’ve started doing some other maintenance work. So long as there isn’t anything major, maybe I’ll be out of your hair by...tomorrow afternoon?”

“That’s too late," the Mayor says, sounding agitated. Emma narrows her eyes.

“That’s too bad,” she fires back. “My car isn’t road-safe. I’ll be going tomorrow but until then, I’m in town. Don’t start getting angry at me because you can’t control your own kid.”

Mayor Mills steps back like she’s been slapped, eyes blazing. There’s a long moment of tension, before she abruptly turns to leave, speaking over her shoulder as she opens the door to her Mercedes.

“Welcome to Storybrooke, Miss Swan. I hope your trip home is pleasant.”


End file.
